GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580, which features clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 169 Watts (225%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
	Difference: 106368 (124%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should be quite a bit (more or less 35%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 17408 (35%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be a little bit (approximately 11%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3648 (11%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.